Students taking the history course, “Women in the Black Freedom Movement” (HIST 3460), stepped out of the classroom and into the archives toward the end of the spring 2026 semester for a hands-on project that gave them firsthand experience in historical research and archival work.

Students taking the history course, “Women in the Black Freedom Movement” (HIST 3460), look over materials as part of an archival project for the John M. Pfau Library’s Special Collections and University Archives.
Students taking the history course, “Women in the Black Freedom Movement” (HIST 3460), look over materials as part of an archival project for the John M. Pfau Library’s Special Collections and University Archives.

Over two days in April, the students completed an archival research project and advanced the processing of archival materials at Cal State San Bernardino’s John M. Pfau Library’s Department of Special Collections and University Archives. The project grew out of an ongoing collaboration between Marc Robinson, associate professor of history, and Eric Milenkiewicz, university archivist.

Robinson’s students completed approximately five hours of training led by Milenkiewicz. The students learned about archives, as well as archival processing and analysis. In addition, they practiced drafting and revising document-level and box-level archival descriptions, guided by feedback from Milenkiewicz, Robinson and peer editing. 

As the crowning achievement of the project, the students' final box-level descriptions were published online, giving the students a clear accomplishment and aiding future research.

The students examined archival records in the Wilmer Amina Carter Papers, which focus on African American history in the Inland Empire. Carter is a longtime community leader and outstanding alumnus of CSUSB. 

In groups of two to three, the students completed descriptions for five boxes of archives:

The John M. Pfau Library’s Special Collections and University Archives, located on the library’s fourth floor, houses the university’s collection of rare books, archives, photographs, maps, ephemera and other unique materials. Its holdings include university archives, local/regional history, pulp fiction, aerial photography, citrus history, and a growing collection of comic books and graphic novels.